The purpose of
this site is for information and a record of Gerry McCann's Blog
Archives. As most people will appreciate GM deleted all past blogs
from the official website. Hopefully this Archive will be helpful to
anyone who is interested in Justice for Madeleine Beth McCann. Many
Thanks, Pamalam

Note: This site does not belong to the McCanns. It belongs to Pamalam. If
you wish to contact the McCanns directly, please use
the contact/email details
campaign@findmadeleine.com

As the fourth anniversary of Madeleine McCann's disappearance approaches - and coincides with a new book written
by her mother, Kate - Olga Craig returns to Praia da Luz to see how the Portuguese resort has put the incident behind it

By Olga Craig7:00AM BST 24 Apr 2011

It is the spiritual sanctuary to which Kate and Gerry McCann
return time and time again with each passing year. Usually their visits are in private, occasionally with close relatives.
But it is here, in the tiny, white-washed 17th-century church of Our Lady of Light, overlooking the sea in Praia da Luz on
the Algarve, where the couple feel closest to Madeleine, their cherished oldest child, who next month will have been missing
for four years. Here is where Kate, especially, in the words of parish priest Father Haynes Hubbard, her Portuguese pastor
and confidant, "comes back to cling to the hope that their daughter will come home".

The church has always
been where the McCanns and their supporters have gathered, particularly during those dark days following May 3 2007 when Madeleine,
then just days short of her fourth birthday, vanished from the family’s holiday apartment in the seaside village. It
has been here they have found succour and strength. Here that they still hope one day to return to give thanks and salvation
for the safe return of their child, who will turn eight next month.

Yet today, as another agonising anniversary
looms for the McCanns, there is, surely, something missing? While the congregation prays daily for Madeleine, the photographs
of the little girl, forever frozen in time as the chubby-cheeked, gap-toothed toddler she was when she vanished, are nowhere
to be seen. Once, they adorned the walls and pews. "Find Madeleine" posters, replaced when they faded, were pinned
near the altar and yellow and green ribbons, symbols of the campaign launched to search for her, adorned the porch. Now there
are none.

"There are pictures of Madeleine in the church," Fr Hubbard says hesitantly. "But you
can't see them, they are hidden. They are not on display. People were hurt and scarred by everything that was said and
done and it has frightened them off. Many are now cautious to openly display their hope."

He is wary; uncomfortable,
perhaps. He chooses his words with care. For while he – and many in his congregation – continue to pray in hope
rather than in despair, the sad truth is that Madeleine McCann has become an awkward, painful and, perhaps unpalatably, at
times taboo topic in Praia da Luz. Tragically, though perhaps understandably, the overwhelming atmosphere here is of a community
uncomfortable with its connection to a lost little girl. Some have simply airbrushed her from memory while others, who at
the time were highly vocal in the "Find Maddy" campaign, now distance themselves.

A few, one suspects,
feel guilty that the locals did not handle the disappearance in a more organised – and less hysterical – manner.
As Inez Lopes, editor of the local newspaper, Algarve Resident, points out: "People want to move on, not be
forever attached to or identified with Madeleine. Of course we still feel for the McCanns but we want to be associated with
a happier place. Frankly, it was an isolated incident that could have happened anywhere in the world. Right now Portugal is
in the grip of a financial crisis. In Praia da Luz the feeling is that it has hurt our local economy. Tourism was affected
by it, businesses closed. I don’t think the local business community can be blamed for wanting to return to being nothing
more than a holidaymakers' haven."

Many of the principal characters in the case – which saw the
McCanns by turn being comforted and protected by the Portuguese and expatriate communities alike as grieving parents; then
vilified and shunned when they were, wrongly, accused of being involved in the disappearance – have moved on. Others
want to banish all reminders of Madeleine's existence and some openly display anger that this once prosperous tourist
town is now synonymous with the abduction and possible murder of a child. Just a month ago, fresh posters were either torn
down or had paint splattered over them within 24 hours. Reluctantly the McCanns have accepted that their campaign reminders
are no longer welcomed by many locals.

And while no one would deny that the McCanns have borne the brunt of the
anguish and opprobrium, they are not alone in that suffering. Within weeks of Madeleine's disappearance Robert Murat,
a British expatriate who had made Praia da Luz his home, was under investigation. The villa he shared with his elderly mother
Jenny was searched by police and sniffer dogs and its grounds dug up. Mr Murat was questioned repeatedly by police and became
the public scapegoat for the international outrage over Madeleine's abduction. He was vilified in print, spat at in the
streets and besieged in his home. In time, he too was exonerated. The scars of his public savaging, however, remain. These
days he is rarely seen in public in Praia da Luz. He has since married his long-term girlfriend Michaela (she, too, was wrongly
accused of involvement) who eight months ago gave birth to their son, Benjamin.

"No one wanted to know how
I felt, or what I was going through at the time," he says with an understandable trace of bitterness. "From my perspective,
I have a new life with my wife and baby son."

None the less, Mr Murat and his family have found it difficult
to return to anonymity. "It's still talked about here. All the time. But everyone is more cautious, less willing
to take events at face value," says Tuck Price, a close friend of Mr Murat and his staunchest supporter when he was wrongly
accused. "Madeleine's disappearance is an uncomfortable reminder that perhaps we had all become too complacent. Just
last week I had my four-year-old nephew and his 12-year-old sister staying. And yes, I was more vigilant. I kept a closer
eye on them than maybe I would have before Madeleine disappeared."

Mr Murat's aunt and uncle, Sally and
Ralph Everleigh, were also hounded during the spell he was under suspicion. Though they were never accused of any involvement
they were harassed and cold-shouldered: for nothing more than being deemed guilty by association. "It was a horrendous
time," Mrs Everleigh recalls. "Our house was bugged, our phones tapped. Of course the McCanns have suffered a tragedy
that they will never be able to come to terms with. How could they? But the stress of the whole situation made my husband
ill. We suffered in our own way." Little wonder, then, that each year, as the May 3 anniversary approaches, the couple
leave their home and spend a few weeks in Gibraltar to escape the attention.

There are many in the tourism trade,
too, whose businesses have been affected by what Ms Lopes describes as the "double whammy of the recession and the Maddy
effect". Several shops are boarded up and closed, and the resort seems a little more shabby, a little more down-at-heel.
Restaurant owners mutter or grimace dismissively when asked how they have been affected. "Badly," is the morose,
monosyllabic response of one café owner. "We don't want to talk about it," say most. "We want the
holidaymakers back." It hasn't helped, naturally, that Portugal's weather is currently unseasonably poor. Last
week, Praia da Luz was lashed with torrential rain, its few tourists forced to huddle in cafés clad in sou’westers
and gumboots.

Mrs Ruth McCann (no relation) who owned the 5a apartment that was rented to the McCanns through the
Ocean Club complex from where Madeleine was snatched, has tried for two years to sell. Though she dropped the price to £255,000
(£50,000 less than similar properties sell for) she didn't have a single inquiry. The flat has lain unoccupied since
the McCanns left it to return to their Leicestershire home in Rothely in September 2007. And it shows. The varnish on its
front door has become faded and stripped by the sun; its garden is overgrown and the hedge, in contrast to those adjacent,
is unkempt and bedraggled. "I keep asking the Ocean people to cut it," says Ian Fenn who inherited the apartment
above from his mother, Pamela, who died last month.

Mr Fenn, who lives in England, visits the flat monthly and
has witnessed its transformation from white-washed holiday home to a ghoulish, run-down tourist attraction. "There are
always tourists who stand outside and get their friends to take their photograph outside 5a," he says wearily. "They
find some ghastly attraction in being pictured at the spot when a little girl was abducted. Gerry McCann did come up to apologise
to my mother for all the unwanted attention – which was incredibly kind as he has endured a grief and pain that no parent
should ever have to withstand."

There have been subtle changes, too, in the Ocean complex. On the night their
daughter was snatched, the McCanns and seven other British couples in their party, dined in the complex, leaving all their
children – in adjacent apartments – alone. They did not lock the doors, fearing the children would be trapped
should a fire break out. Neither did they pay for a baby-sitting service, saying they didn't want to leave their children
with strangers. Instead, in a decision that will forever haunt the couple, they opted to take turns checking on all the sleeping
children at half-hourly intervals. Today, the dining area has been turned into a pizzeria and is no longer open in the evenings.
And though the McCanns have received world-wide sympathy, they know that those fateful decisions will always be questioned.

In the complex several British families, hoping to escape what they believed would be brisk Easter weather at home,
were holidaying in the Ocean complex last week. Mike and Liz Atwood from Birmingham and their three children – Toby,
12, Lucy, nine, and four-year-old Tom – were among the few who braved the pool during the brief spells when the monsoon-like
rains ceased. The family has holidayed in Praia da Luz many times and though Madeleine's disappearance disturbed them,
they have opted to return each year.

"But, of course, we are more vigilant," Mrs Atwood admits. "This
is a friendly, family-orientated resort and the Portuguese are well-known for how lovingly they treat children. But we just
don't let the kids out of our sight. We wouldn't dream of going out for dinner and leaving them alone. I don't
mean to be critical of the McCanns. All parents can empathise with how grief-stricken they are. How bitterly they regret those
decisions. They are paying a dear and heavy price and no one would wish it upon them. It has certainly made us be more attentive."

On Praia da Luz’s beach, too, parents keep a keen eye on their children. Between heavy showers, as some played
in the sand clad in stout boots and raincoats, their mothers shivered on the sea front watching them. "I don't even
want to sit in the café where it's warm," one said. "I would rather get wet and cold and know they are
safe."

Among the local Portuguese community too there have been many whose lives have changed immeasurably
since Madeleine's disappearance. None more so, perhaps, than Gonçalo Amaral, who initially headed the botched and
woefully inadequate police investigation. Since being dropped from the case, he has become a thorn in the McCanns' side.
While Kate awaits the launch of her own book on May 12 (Madeleine's birthday) in which she tells the story from her perspective,
and the proceeds from which will hopefully boost the vastly depleted Find Madeleine campaign, she and husband Gerry face a
renewed legal battle with Amaral. They had already clashed over his sensationalised and dubious account of events, cryptically
entitled The Truth of The Lie in which he attempted to justify his decision to brand the couple as suspects, which
the McCanns called "mistaken" and aired his highly speculative theory that Madeleine died in apartment 5a. When
he was barred from publishing it, he set about writing another which is also timed to launch near Madeleine's birthday.

This weekend, while he refused to comment on his book, his wife Sonia defended his decision to publish a second. "Gonçalo
has worked hard on this book," she said. "He has spent days and nights assessing the evidence. In it he will say
his investigation was cut short and he will explain what he would have done if he had been allowed to continue." The
timing of the publication, she insisted, was "coincidental. We are not trying to cash in on the anniversary".

None the less, the timing will be hurtful for the McCanns who had hoped their court battles had dissuaded him from
further comment. "It's just one more painful thing they must face," says one relative. "Quite why he wants
to hound them when it has been proved definitively that they are completely innocent, no one knows."

This
weekend, while the congregation of Our Lady of Light held traditional Easter services, doubtless many said silent prayers
for Madeleine, although she was not mentioned by name. Many will leave the village for the anniversary, others intend to make
an appearance at the vigil in the church on May 3. In their home town of Rothely, Kate and Gerry will be steeling themselves
to attend their fourth service that marks yet another year without a trace of Madeleine.

Both vigils will be emotion-filled.
Prayers will be said, fervent hopes for a happy outcome – which, with the passing of time, becomes ever less likely
– voiced. In Praia da Luz, however, quietly and behind the scenes, one man will spend the day remembering Madeleine
in a more practical way. David Edgar, the Ulster-born ex-police officer whose Alpha Group Investigations has taken over the
search, will hope that the anniversary – and publication of Kate's book – will jog a long-forgotten memory.

That finally there will be a resolution to what has become an enduring mystery: the whereabouts of Madeleine McCann.

Kate and Gerry McCann,
admired around the world for their courageous search for missing daughter Madeleine, have been named as suspects in the case
of her disappearance. Olga Craig tracks the couple's desperate four-month ordeal

As Kate and Gerry
McCann trudged, hand-in-hand with heads bowed, through the narrow cobblestone streets of Praia da Luz towards the town's
tiny, whitewashed church of Our Lady of the Light, en route to 11am Mass on the morning of Sunday, May 5, crowds of onlookers
stood in silent sympathy.

Only two days before, the couple's eldest child, blonde, bewitching three-year-old
Madeleine, had vanished from their holiday apartment, seemingly abducted from her bedroom while she slept, tucked between
her twin siblings, in the sleepy Algarve coastal resort.

Already, shockwaves were reverberating around the world.

Here before them, was the distraught, stumbling young mother whose name was now synonymous with the searing heartache
of maternal loss.

As the McCanns drew nearer to the church, the quiet murmurings of grief, of sympathy and pity
for a mother who clutched Cuddle Cat, her child's favourite toy, to her chest and was so clearly clinging to the belief
that within days Madeleine would be found, swelled.

Their message was clear: we are with you, we will support you, we
will comfort you as we would our own.

Four months on, almost to the day, how astonishingly, almost unbelievably,
things have changed.

On the morning of September 7, again, shortly before 11am, Kate McCann once more walked through
the Portuguese crowds swarming the pavement, this time to face an 11-hour grilling by police, who were waiting to ask her:
Did you kill your daughter?

This time there was no cheering support, no rousing reception.

Instead the
low, slow sound of hissing, then jeers and the escalating angry cat-calls of: "How could you? What mother could do this?"

Only one lone voice, that of an English holiday-maker, shouted: "We believe you Kate."

It must
have been scant comfort to Madeleine's mother, now painfully thin and wan-faced, as she walked trance-like into the Portimao
police headquarters.

Today Kate McCann, and Gerry, both 39, are no longer deemed, by Portuguese police at least,
the tragic victims of a heinous and heartless crime: they now face the finger of vile suspicion as the chief suspects in the
disappearance of their daughter - of whom there has been not a single sighting since the evening she vanished.

That
the McCanns, initially, evoked sympathy and compassion worldwide is without doubt.

The great and good, from the
Pope to the British Prime Minister, from David Beckham to pop stars, have pledged their support, using their status and celebrity
to highlight the compelling and sorrowful story of Madeleine's abduction, which has topped the news agenda for three months.

In the intervening time, the couple have been feted and applauded across the world, saluted for their relentless FindMadeleine
campaign - which has raised more than £1 million - and the stoic courage they have shown as the lacklustre Portuguese
police inquiry, punctuated by bumbling inefficiency and the most basic of flaws, lumbered slowly along.

Then, three
weeks ago, the tide seemed to turn. When Robert Murat, the British-born suspect, angrily suggested those "bloody McCanns"
should return home, he was not, this time, a lone voice.

The Portuguese media had already been revelling in lurid
headlines suggesting that the couple were "swingers" who indulged in wife-swapping, had drunk 14 bottles of wine
along with their seven friends on the night Madeleine vanished, had not been nearly so vigilant about checking on their children
on the evening of May 3 as they claimed and were under intense scrutiny by police, who now believed Madeleine was dead.

The idea that something was awry finally seemed to be taking root in the public's consciousness.

Increasingly,
the McCanns seemed isolated. Even though the Portuguese police investigation was riddled with flaws, more and more people
began to question the family's version of events.

Gnawing, often unspoken, doubts festered.

When
the Portuguese media insisted that its allegations were not based on wildly imaginative speculation, but were the result of
secret briefings by police moles, they had largely been dismissed.

Now, however, the public grudgingly gave them
more and more credence.

On Friday, we discovered why. Those veiled innuendoes and lurid allegations, it became
clear, were indeed based on the Portuguese police's suspicions. Suspicions they had most likely leaked to their own country's
media, possibly in the hope of rattling the McCanns and encouraging them to change their story.

And those suspicions
were based on scientific evidence, albeit evidence that the Portuguese themselves had spectacularly missed or failed to seek
out and which was revealed only after they finally allowed British police, who possess much more sophisticated equipment and
methods, to become involved.

In the past two days, events have switched. Why, Portuguese police want to know, did
the McCanns hire a car five weeks after Madeleine's disappearance and one day before they flew to Rome for an audience
with the Pope?

How did traces of Madeleine's blood come to be found on the window and under the sofa of apartment
5a in the Mark Warner Ocean Club resort in which the couple had stayed along with their two-year-old twins, Sean and Amelie,
and Madeleine?

Why were traces of Madeleine's bodily fluids discovered in the car?

Why had sniffer
dogs smelled the scent of a corpse on Kate McCann's jeans and T-shirt and on Cuddle Cat, Madeleine's favourite toy
which Mrs McCann twists obsessively through her trembling fingers as her last tangible link with Madeleine?

Did
you sedate your daughter, accidentally overdose her and then panic and dispose of the body, they want to know.

And
while there can be no doubt that the majority of people believe the McCanns to be entirely innocent, and that the allegations
are, in the words of Philomena McCann, Gerry's aunt, "ludicrous and utterly untrue", the public, too, has pressing
questions: Have the McCanns cynically manipulated a gullible public that was all too willing to believe their heartbreaking
story of how their cherished child disappeared?

Was their carefully orchestrated and sophisticated campaign, that
included jetting across the world on fact-finding missions and high-profile press events, merely a smoke screen for what could
be one of the most audacious and clever cover-ups?

In the early days of May no one could have imagined such a scenario.

Day after day, as the McCanns left their apartment at 9am to walk Sean and Amelie to the Mark Warner creche, they
appeared more and more pitiable.

They embraced media involvement, believing publicity was their best weapon.

"We are waging a war, a strategic campaign," Gerry told me in the couple's first face-to-face interview
with a British Sunday national newspaper.

That day, the first time I had spoken at length to the couple, there
seemed no reason to doubt their story of how they had put their three children to bed at 7pm and then dined at a tapas bar,
checking at half-hour intervals.

Yes, I had niggling suspicions. It was true, I suggested gently, that while they
had dined within the safe confines of the Mark Warner resort, behind security staffed gates, their children were left alone
in a ground-floor apartment seven to eight minutes away, on the main road.

And when I, apologetically, asked my
two final questions, prefacing them delicately with the explanation that I had, as a journalist, no option but to ask, Kate
became very edgy.

When I queried their decision to ignore the various baby-sitting services, Kate mumbled something
about not wanting "to leave them with strangers".

When I asked why they left the patio doors and windows
unlocked, she stood up and walked off. Understandably, they were distressing questions. Nevertheless, she was unwilling to
address them.

Kate McCann, whom I was convinced, without a doubt, was incapable of harming a hair upon her child's
head and was, truly, a distraught and heart-broken mother, did come across as detached, a little cold.

Only through
lengthy gentle coaxing would she talk of her emotions. But, I reasoned, too much could be read into that.

Joanne
Lees, initially suspected of the murder of her boyfriend Peter Falconio, suffered vilification simply because she did not
wear her heart on her sleeve. She was, as was later proved, innocent.

When Kate was asked a difficult question
she sat in silence, leaving the response to Gerry.

He, more gregarious by nature, could be slightly arrogant. It
was easily explained by his natural desire to be doing something positive and his professional training as a highly skilled
cardiologist, accustomed to controlling situations. Yet it was mildly disconcerting.

In those initial weeks, I
also witnessed the Portuguese police's shambolic inquiry.

I noted the four Alsatian sniffer dogs penned in
cages in the sweltering sun while their handlers scoured the seafront shops for souvenirs instead of seeking evidence; I observed
too their failure to close the border between Portugal and Spain for 12 hours after Madeleine vanished and the paucity of
their apparent evidence against Robert Murat, who appeared to be guilty only of having a strange manner and a nosy desire
to be at the heart of the case.

Although Portuguese police insisted that there was no paedophile ring operating
in the country, their British counterparts revealed that 130 such criminals had travelled to Portugal in the past two years.

Casa Liliano, the villa shared by Mr Murat and his mother, Jenny, about 100 yards from the McCann's apartment,
was searched twice, its grounds dug up.

His computers were scoured and his links with the somewhat elusive Russian,
Sergey Malinka, and Malinka's mysterious on-off girlfriend Michaela, were trawled through.

But while Mr Murat
became the sole suspect, no charges have ever been brought and he expects to be exonerated soon.

By July, while
the McCanns were still swamped with unswerving support, the first voices of dissent began to emerge.

The Leicester
Mercury, the couple's local newspaper serving the Rothley village where they lived, was forced to close its Madeleine
website after a series of "spiteful and defamatory" remarks were made about the McCanns.

Then came the
real turning of the tide. Tired of being ignored by the McCanns, the Portuguese media camped outside their villa and knocked
constantly upon their door. When the family left, the media circus followed, tracking the couple obsessively.

In
Praia da Luz, too, more and more people began to ask why the McCanns were still there. It seemed heartless. And, yet, one
could see the sentiment take root and grow.

In a scathing letter to the Algarve's English language newspaper,
the Portugal News, Martyn Smith, a British solicitor living in Praia da Luz, asked a series of scorching questions.

"The Director of Public Prosecutions should consider if there is a case to answer," he thundered, querying the
couple's decision to leave their children alone.

Why, he asked, did the McCanns travel to several European
countries but never Britain. "It may be for fear of prosecution," he said.

The all-too-sad truth was
that the tide of goodwill was turning against the McCanns.

Locals were angry that their police were being so heavily
criticised by the British press. British journalists also believed the Portuguese simply wanted a scapegoat, preferably not
Portuguese, upon whom they could pin the crime.

"People here are finding it all very tiresome," Sheena
Rawcliff, the managing director of the Resident, Praia da Luz's English-language magazine, admitted to me.

"Of
course our hearts go out to them. But people are asking the blunt questions. Why leave them alone? Why remain here? The McCanns
need closure, but so, too, do the people of Praia da Luz. A backlash has begun and I believe it could get ugly."

This weekend, Ms Rawcliffe has been proved correct.

Kate and Gerry McCann should have been preparing to board
a flight back to England this morning with their two remaining children.

Instead, they will, once again, trudge
to their local church, passing the posters, now torn and dog-eared, of their cherished Madeleine. They have vowed to remain
in Portugal until they clear their names.

But, however astonishing it may seem, there appears to be a possibility
that the couple whose anguish has touched the world may face charges of accidentally killing their child and disposing of
her body.

Few in Britain will believe that they could have been involved: perhaps because that possibility, with
all its implications, is too horrendous to contemplate.

Never more so than now will the McCann's motto of "Hope,
Strength and Courage" be more important, or more vital, to their survival.

This week
marks the fourth anniversary of the disappearance of Madeleine McCann from the apartment that she and her family were staying
at in Praia da Luz on May 3, 2007.

While the active search for Madeleine McCann by official authorities may have
long ceased, her family continue to work to find their missing daughter, employing private investigators and continuing to
urge the public to help in their search.

For many, the Algarve is no longer only associated with the news story
of Madeleine McCann, a story which resonated around the world as the pictures, reports and footage of Kate and Gerry McCann
addressing the press from Praia da Luz in an attempt to find their daughter created global awareness of the case.

British tourist Eva Barry told the Algarve Resident: "While I have been here on holiday, I travelled to Praia da Luz
for a day trip with my family and, to be honest, I never once connected the Madeleine McCann case to the resort. It
has been a long time since she went missing and although it would be wonderful if she was found, it is not something that
I immediately associate with the Algarve as I may have done years ago."

Praia da Luz may have recovered
from the case but it will always remain a focal point, not only for the press but also for the family of Madeleine McCann
and their supporters.

New book

On May 3 a vigil will be held at the church in Luz from
9pm. Father Haynes Hubbard told the Algarve Resident: "There will be a vigil on the day for 30 minutes in the church
and all are welcome to join us in prayer for her return. I do not expect any of her family members to be here for this."

Kate and Gerry McCann are said to be attending a vigil in their home town of Rothley in Leicestershire to mark the
anniversary before Kate McCann launches a book that she has written about the case in a bid to raise further money for the
Find Madeleine Fund.

The book, entitled Madeleine, is to be published on May 12 to coincide with the eighth birthday
of their daughter, who was only three when she went missing.

Kate McCann said: "My reason for writing is simple:
to give an account of the truth. Publishing this book has been a very difficult decision and is one that we have taken after
much deliberation and with a very heavy heart."

She added: "However, with the depletion of Madeleine's
Fund, the decision has been taken out of our hands. Every penny we raise through its sales will be spent on our search for
Madeleine. Nothing is more important to us than finding our little girl."

KATE McCANN has returned from another poignant solo trip to Portugal
on the eve of the fourth anniversary of her daughter Madeleine's kidnap.

She made the journey
partly to meet friends and supporters but also to say prayers for Madeleine ahead of Tuesday's anniversary.

For
the past five months she has spent every waking hour working on her book about the seemingly unsolvable crime in the hope
that readers worldwide will produce the vital clue which has so far eluded detectives.

Two weeks ago she put the
finishing touches to the book, called simply Madeleine, and then flew to Portugal. The 42-year-old former GP has worried friends
by her relentless work in recent months and has lost weight, partly due to her fitness regime and partly through having to
recall all the painful details of the abduction.

A stalwart friend who has helped her deal with the pressures has
been Fiona Payne, who was with the family on their ill-fated holiday.

Kate's husband Gerry, also 42, has been
a constant support, but in recent months has been taking more of a back seat in the campaign to find out who snatched Madeleine
from a holiday apartment in Praia da Luz on the Algarve on May 3, 2007.

A source said: "Gerry is immensely
proud of the way Kate has worked so hard for so long. He is exceptionally busy with his job as a heart expert at a local hospital
and as he is the sole breadwinner it is vital he keeps his job. Kate has been going through emotional hell as she pours out
all the hurt and anger of the past four years on page after page.

"Although she is softly spoken and quiet
by nature I think she has found a vehicle to express her anger and frustration at all the things that went wrong in the investigation.

"Only a small group of people have seen the book and Gerry has told his friends that it is very much Kate's
project and that he is proud of the way she has knuckled down to the task.

"Kate has made several solo trips
to Portugal this year. There are legal meetings but her priority is to make sure her book gets a fair hearing when it is published
there in mid-May.

"Although it is possible the breakthrough may come from a British person reading the book,
it is far more likely that someone in Portugal who picks up a copy may come forward with the missing piece of the jigsaw."

It is expected Kate will launch the book in London on May 12, Madeleine's eighth birthday, and will again travel
to Portugal the following week. She and Gerry and their six-year-old twins Sean and Amelie will mark Tuesday's anniversary
quietly at their home in Rothley, Leicestershire.

Kate and
Gerry McCann will tomorrow mark the fourth anniversary of their daughter Madeleine's disappearance privately with family
and friends.

The couple are keeping a low profile as Mrs McCann (43) prepares to publish her account of how the
little girl vanished on a family holiday to Portugal in 2007.

Proceeds from the book -- which is simply entitled
Madeleine and goes on sale on May 12 -- will boost their dwindling fund to search for their daughter.

They also
hope that the publication of the work will prompt people holding vital information about what happened to the child to come
forward.

The McCanns, from Leicestershire, are not giving any interviews to mark the anniversary of Madeleine's
disappearance this year, although they will do some to promote their book.LANDMARK

Family
spokesman Clarence Mitchell said: "It will be a private day marked with family and friends. The anniversary is normally
a very low-key occasion at home for them."

He added that there were no plans for them to return to Portugal
for the sad four-year landmark. The 384-page book, which Mrs McCann has written herself without the aid of a ghost writer,
is expected to become a best-seller.

It was originally due to be published last week but publishers Transworld
postponed the release date by a fortnight to avoid clashing with the royal wedding.

The book is published on Madeleine's
eighth birthday.

A publishing source said there was a "huge amount" of international interest in Mrs
McCann's personal account but it will initially be launched in the UK alone. The book has been translated into Portuguese
and is expected to be published in Portugal in the near future.

The McCanns are fighting a legal battle against
former Portuguese detective Goncalo Amaral over his own book which alleges that Madeleine died in the apartment and that her
parents faked her abduction -- something they strongly deny.

In October the appeal court in Lisbon overturned an
injunction obtained by the couple banning publication of Mr Amaral's work, Maddie: The Truth Of The Lie.

--------------------------

And another version that is representative of all reports published on 03 May 2011:

Kate and Gerry
McCann are marking the fourth anniversary of their daughter Madeleine's disappearance privately with family and friends.

The couple are keeping a low profile as Kate, 43, prepares to publish her account of how the little girl vanished
on a family holiday to Portugal on May 3, 2007.

Proceeds from the book – which is simply entitled Madeleine
and goes on sale on May 12 – will boost their dwindling reserves to help fund the search for their daughter.

They also hope that the publication of the work will prompt people holding vital information about what happened to the
child to come forward at last.

The McCanns, of Rothley, are not giving any interviews to mark the anniversary of
Madeleine's disappearance this year.

However, they will be doing some to promote their book.

Family
spokesman Clarence Mitchell said: "It will be a private day marked with family and friends. The anniversary is normally
a very low-key occasion at home for them."

He added that there were no plans for the couple to return to Portugal
for the four-year landmark.

Kate's 384-page book, which she has written without the aid of a ghost writer,
has a recommended retail price of £20 and is expected to become a best-seller.

It was originally due to be
available last week.

However, publisher Transworld postponed the release date by a fortnight to avoid clashing
with the royal wedding.

Extracts from the book will be serialised by newspapers from this weekend, before the book
is published on Madeleine's eighth birthday.

A publishing source said there was a "huge amount" of
international interest in Kate's personal account, but it will initially be launched in the UK alone.

The book
has been translated into Portuguese and is expected to be published in Portugal in the near future.

The McCanns
are fighting a legal battle against former Portuguese detective Goncalo Amaral over his own book, which alleges that Madeleine
died in the apartment and that her parents faked her abduction – something the McCanns strongly deny.

In
October, the appeal court in Lisbon overturned an injunction obtained by the couple banning publication of Mr Amaral's
work, Maddie: The Truth Of The Lie.

Madeleine was nearly four when she vanished from her family's holiday apartment
in Praia da Luz, in the Algarve, on May 3, 2007, as her parents dined with friends nearby.

Despite a massive police
investigation and huge publicity worldwide, the youngster has not been found.

The official Portuguese inquiry into
Madeleine's disappearance was formally shelved in July 2008, although private detectives employed by the McCanns have
continued the search.TIMELINE: Key events since Madeleine McCann's disappearance

2007

May 3: Madeleine is found missing from the family's holiday apartment. Kate and Gerry McCann
had been dining with friends at a nearby restaurant. One friend later reports seeing a man carrying a child away earlier that
night.

May 14: Anglo-Portuguese property developer Robert Murat is made an "arguido", or
official suspect.

August 6: A Portuguese newspaper reports that British sniffer dogs have found traces of blood
in the McCanns' apartment.

September 7: Detectives make Mr and Mrs McCann "arguidos".

October 2: Goncalo Amaral, the detective in charge, is removed from the case.2008

May 3: Mrs McCann urges people to "pray like mad" on the first anniversary of Madeleine's disappearance.

July 21: The Portuguese authorities shelve their investigation and lift the "arguido" status on the McCanns
and Mr Murat.

July 24: Mr Amaral publishes a book, The Truth Of The Lie, in which he alleges that Madeleine died
in the holiday flat.

August 4: Evidence from the Portuguese police investigation is made public.2009

January 29: £2 million was raised for the official fund to find Madeleine in the first 10
months.

September 9: A Portuguese judge bans further sale or publication of Mr Amaral's book following legal
action by Mr and Mrs McCann.

2010

November 14: Mr and Mrs McCann announce they have
signed a deal to write a book.2011

April 28: An online petition calling for a full
review of the evidence nears the 50,000-signature milestone.

Today marks the fourth anniversary
of Madeleine McCann's disappearance – a four-year living nightmare for her parents Kate and Gerry, who will spend
the day quietly and privately at their Rothley home with family and friends.

It is impossible for any of us to
imagine what the family have endured over the past four years.

The fact that your child is missing in a foreign
country is, in itself, every parent's nightmare, but add the international glare of publicity, the unfounded police allegations
and the hurtful and malicious comments by some, it must make the pressure and pain unbearable at times.

The efforts
by the McCanns to find their daughter are relentless and resourceful in the face of what is, at best, Portuguese indifference.

Private detectives are still employed to investigate sightings and money needs to be raised by the couple to keep
that search going.

The latest effort in that desperate drive for funding will be the release of Madeleine –
a 384-page book written by her mother Kate.

Extracts from the book will be serialised in newspapers from this weekend
before the official launch.

The book and the newspaper serialisation will all raise badly-needed funds to keep
the search for Madeleine alive.

We can all only pray that all the publicity surrounding the book can finally bring
the breakthrough the family have been so desperately been waiting for.

A SPECIAL Mass for
Madeleine McCann will be said in Liverpool tomorrow – the fourth anniversary of her disappearance.

It will
take place at 7.30pm at Our Lady of the Annunciation, Bishop Eton, in Woolton Road, Childwall – the parish church of
Liverpool-born Kate McCann's parents, Brian and Susan Healy, and also the church where Kate and her husband, Gerry, were
married.

Each Sunday, the church holds a children's Mass at which Madeleine is remembered, and Mrs Healy said:
"The support we have had from our parish priest, Father Desmond Keegan, has been solid all along.

"Whenever
we have needed his help, he has been there.

"He is leaving the parish soon and moving to Edinburgh, and we
want to say he's been absolutely tremendous."

Meanwhile, Kate McCann's 384-page book – Madeleine
– is being published on May 12, her daughter's eighth birthday.

Mrs Healy said: "Kate has to tell
her story, even though it's been the most terribly painful process over the last nine months. We just hope that something
will come from the book. It's something that may just force someone to come forward. It's also an account for Madeleine
and for the twins (six-year-old Sean and Amelie)."

Transworld won the rights to publish Kate's account
of how her daughter vanished during a family holiday in Portugal in 2007 and the subsequent efforts to find her. When the
deal was announced, Kate explained: "There are several different reasons as to why I finally came to the decision with
my husband, Gerry, to write and publish this book.

"Many factors needed to be given thorough and careful consideration,
not least the impact of such a book on the lives of our three children. My reason for writing is simple; to give an account
of the truth.

"Publishing this book has been a very difficult decision and is one that we have taken after
much deliberation and with a very heavy heart." But she also stressed that with "the depletion of Madeleine's
Fund (Leaving No Stone Unturned Ltd) it is a decision that has virtually been taken out of our hands".

She
added: "Every penny we raise through its sales will be spent on our search for Madeleine. Nothing is more important to
us than finding our little girl." And Gerry McCann said: "Our hope is that it may prompt those who have relevant
information to come forward and share it with our team.

"Somebody holds that key piece of the jigsaw."

The publishers have secured an exclusive serialisation deal with a national newspaper group.

The family of Madeleine McCann –
still hoping, still praying, 02 May 2011

The family of Madeleine McCann – still hoping, still praying Liverpool Echo

Liverpool Echo - Our ViewMay 2 2011

TOMORROW is
the fourth anniversary of the disappearance of Madeleine McCann – and still her parents are craving that elusive breakthrough
which they hope will lead to the safe return of their daughter.

As we report today, a special Mass will be said
in Liverpool tomorrow evening and Liverpool-born Kate's book, Madeleine, will be published on May 12 – Madeleine's
eighth birthday.

The Mass will reflect the ongoing support given to Kate's family – including her parents,
Susan and Brian Healy, who live in Allerton – by the people of this city, while it is hoped that the book will lead
to someone with vital information coming forward.

In a sense, nothing has changed from the night Madeleine went
missing – there is still incredible sadness, but there is also hope.

It is this hope which continues to drive
the search. And it is this hope which provides the response to those who, after four years, ask why Madeleine's parents
continue looking.

As Kate and Gerry McCann say on their website: "There is absolutely nothing to suggest that
Madeleine has been harmed. Madeleine is still missing and someone needs to be looking for her. She is very young and vulnerable
and needs our help."

Wouldn't every parent in their position be doing and saying exactly the same thing?

It is a story which, with the passing of time, has inevitably attracted fewer and fewer headlines, but, with tomorrow's
anniversary and next week's publication of Kate McCann's book, the world's media will again be focusing on the
family's plight.

We can only hope this renewed emphasis can help bring about what we would all dearly love
to see – a happy ending to a family's harrowing and heartbreaking ordeal.

MADELEINE McCann's parents issued
a heartfelt thank-you to people for "not giving up" on their daughter - ahead of today's fourth anniversary
of her disappearance.

Anguished Kate McCann insisted in an internet message: "She is still
findable."

Kate added on the FindMadeleine website: "We would like to reiterate our gratitude to all
of our supporters for not forgetting.

"Four years may have passed but our little girl is still missing."
Kate, 43, also told how she still has "flashbacks to May 2007" - when three-year-old Madeleine vanished on holiday.She said: "Everything is so new and fresh.

"You just keep thinking that she's going
to be found tomorrow - and here we are four years later."

Kate and husband Gerry, a fellow doctor also aged
43, will mark today's anniversary quietly as family and friends console them.

The mum will attend a prayer
vigil at the Catholic church near their home in Rothley, Leics. Similar vigils will be held in Liverpool, where Kate's
parents live, and at Our Lady Of Light church in Praia da Luz, Portugal - where Maddie was abducted from the family's
holiday apartment.

The couple's spokesman confirmed: "It will be a private day marked with family and
friends."

Kate hopes a book she has written - entitled simply Madeleine - will lead to people coming up with
new information.

She said: "It will be launched on May 12, which poignantly and coincidentally happens to
be Madeleine's eighth birthday.

"We pray that it will bring us the result we long for and that not only
the book but this whole ordeal and heartache will be behind us before too much longer."

The £20 cover
price will boost the dwindling fund set up to find her little girl.

The McCanns' spokesman said as he revealed
their "very low key" anniversary plans that the couple were not intending to return to the Algarve resort.

Kate's book had been due out last week - but the release date was delayed to avoid clashing with the Royal Wedding.

Updates, 02 May 2011

Updates: findmadeleine.com

Monday, 2nd May, 2011

2011 has been an incredibly busy year so far. Every
year since Madeleine was taken has been, but this one, particularly so.

Between January and March we held 3 fundraising
events – 'Bags of Hope for Madeleine' - at the National Space Centre in Leicester, the Crypt in the Liverpool
Metropolitan Cathedral and the Crowne Plaza Hotel in Glasgow. Despite the time and effort required in organising these evenings,
all three were very positive. As well as the money raised to further the search for Madeleine, these occasions were important
in gathering supporters together, re-energising the campaign and increasing awareness of the frightening and poorly resourced
problem of missing and exploited children. The tangible warmth and support present also gave Gerry and I and all our family
an essential boost. We'd like to thank everybody who supported these events – the venue staff, caterers, entertainers,
those who donated bags and other prizes and of course all those who attended the events. We're very grateful to Steve
Womack, Ricky Tomlinson and Sanjeev Kohli in particular, for giving up their time to support Madeleine, and for making these
evenings extra special.

The main project this year has been writing my book. It will be launched on Thursday 12th
May, which poignantly and coincidentally happens to be Madeleine's 8th birthday. It's a relief that the end of this
intense period is now in sight. We hope and pray that it will bring us the result we long for and that not only the book but
this whole ordeal and heartache will be behind us before too much longer.

Madeleine is still missing and there
is still a lot to be done. Our efforts to find her are not diminishing. If anything, they are escalating. The need for a review
by the authorities of Madeleine's case remains, and our desire to achieve this unwavering. This is a stone which definitely
needs to be turned for Madeleine.

We would like to reiterate our gratitude to all of our supporters for not forgetting.
Four years may have passed but our little girl is still missing. And, she is still findable. Your continued kindness and backing
could help us achieve this.

Thank you again for not giving up on Madeleine.

Kate

Message from McCanns on the anniversary
of Madeleine's disappearance, 03 May 2011

Please remember that it's
been four years since we've held our daughter in our arms. Four years since we've seen our lovely daughter. Please
remember Madeleine today and add her picture to your profile and pass on to all of your friends and family. Thank you! xxx

Support: | findmadeleine.comfindmadeleine.com

Fortunately, there are many cases of abducted children being found and returned to their families - even after long
periods of time. The vital piece of information that leads to a happy and longed-for reunion is usually thanks to a caring
and vigilant member of the general public, often recognising

-------------------

Above text links to the Support (Downloads) page on findmadeleine.com website:

Downloads

Fortunately, there are many
cases of abducted children being found and returned to their families - even after long periods of time. The vital piece of
information that leads to a happy and longed-for reunion is usually thanks to a caring and vigilant member of the general
public, often recognising a face from a poster. In fact, 1 in 6 children are recovered after being recognised from a poster!
It is for this reason that we must continue to remind people of Madeleine and the fact that she is still missing. We are extremely
grateful therefore to everyone for downloading and displaying a poster - It could be the poster that brings Madeleine home.

Campaign Materials & Downloads

Social Network Profile Picture

To add this
picture to your Facebook, Twitter etc... profile, right mouse click on the image and save to your desktop. Then upload as
your profile picture.

The couple have been keeping a low profile recently. What brings them back into the
news?

Today marks the fourth anniversary of the day the couple's daughter Madeleine, went missing
on a family holiday to Portugal in 2007. While this will be marked in private, the couple will give interviews about the publication
on 12 May of the book Madeleine, Kate McCann's account of the disappearance of their daughter. The official Portuguese
inquiry into the disappearance was shelved in July 2008, but proceeds from the book will go towards the fund to continue the
search for their daughter.

Why are they releasing a book now?

The couple are hoping
that the publication of the 384-page book, written by Mrs McCann, will prompt anyone who holds information about Madeleine's
disappearance to come forward. The original release date was last week but their publishers, Transworld, postponed this by
two weeks to avoid a clash with the royal wedding.

Any other reasons for writing the book?

It
also allows Kate McCann to tell her story, after the couple accepted £500,000 in damages from Express Newspapers Group
in 2008 for a number of defamatory articles surrounding the case. They are also fighting a legal battle against a former detective,
Goncalo Amaral, whose own book, Maddie - The Truth of the Lie, alleges that Madeleine died in the apartment and her
parents faked the abduction, an allegation that the McCanns strongly denied. In October the Lisbon appeal court overturned
an injunction gained by the McCanns banning the publication of the work.

Exclusive! Kate McCann 4 years on -
'I still sit in Maddie's room every day', 03 May 2011

Kate McCann: 'The pain is always there - but I'm stronger than a
year ago'

It's four years since Madeleine McCann tragically disappeared from her room while
on holiday in Portugal. Now her mother, Kate, has written a book in a further desperate bid to find her beloved daughter

FOR THE LAST FIVE months Kate McCann has been holed up in her study, painstakingly chronicling the last few agonising
years of her life. She'swept as she's written about her beloved daughter Madeleine's disappearance in Portugal
four years ago.

Kate's written a book, simply entitled Madeleine, in the hope it will help her and her heart
surgeon husband Gerry, 42, find their daughter. They are praying that it might trigger more leads in the case, or at least
make them the flmillion they urgently need to fund the search. It will be published on 12 May - the same day they should have
been celebrating Madeleine's eighth birthday.

It wasn't something Kate or Gerry undertook lightly. Kate
admits: "It wasn't an easy decision to take I had to consider the impact on the lives of our three children. But
with the depletion of Madeleine's Fund, it's a decision that has virtually been taken out of our hands."

And indeed, it seems the harrowing task has taken a lot out of Kate, now 42. A family friend tells Closer: "She'd
put weight on a year ago but it's dropped off again. Reliving her nightmare has taken its toll and she's painfully
thin."

Kate stuck to a rigid routine while writing, running every morning near her home in Rothley, Leics,
after taking the twins, Sean and Amelie, now six, to catch the school bus.

She then went to her study, poring over
diaries she kept in the days directly after Maddie's disappearance, only stopping to pickup the twins at 3.30pm.

A neighbour says: "Kate's eyes light up when she sees the twins climb off the bus. They stroll along like any normal
family."

But sadly this family has been in turmoil since 3 May 2007. As they holidayed with friends in Portugal,
Maddie had poignantly told her mother as she went to bed that evening: "Mummy, I've had the best day ever."

That night the McCanns made the fateful decision to leave their children in the holiday apartment while they sat 100
yards away having a meal with friends. They met at 8.40pm and checked the children regularly. But when Kate went to check
at 10pm Madeleine had gone, though the twins were still asleep.

There haven't been any confirmed sightings
of Madeleine since, but there are plenty of theories about what might have happened to her, from being taken by a paedophile
ring or by someone who couldn't have children, to Kate and Gerry becoming official suspects in September 2007. They were
cleared a year later, but it fuelled suspicion about the couple and even led to internet groups being formed, throwing the
couple's statements into doubt.

But Kate and Gerry have never wavered from their belief that Madeleine is alive
and well.

Kate still sits in Maddie's pretty pink bedroom, where she allows the twins to play, and has returned
twice in the last year to Praia da Luz to be near to where she last saw Maddie.

But Kate
reveals she has let go of some "horrible, negative" anger recently, saying: "The wounds are less raw but the
pain doesn't go away. But I am definitely a lot stronger than I was a year ago."

Kate quit her job as
a GP to be a full-time mum to the twins, and says they've noticed her working on the book.

Kate reveals: "Amelie
asked: 'Why do you work, Mummy?' I tell her: 'Well, I've got to find Madeleine.' And Sean says: 'But
when that's over and she's home, what will you do?' And I think: 'Bring it on!'"

And
Kate is determined that the twins lead an ordinary life.

A friend reveals: "At one time Kate didn't even
go out, but as the twins get older she leads as normal a life as possible."

Kate takes them to the nearby
Soar Valley Leisure Centre, but even there they see reminders of Maddie - a petition remains in the foyer, backing Kate and
Gerry's plea to the government to conduct an independent review of the case. Cars feature Maddie stickers, and green and
yellow ribbons symbolising hope are tied to aerials and the gates of the McCanns' home.

A friend says: "Writing
about her daughter has been very painful, and there have been many tears. It's the book Kate never wanted to write, but
the family are desperate to keep the search going. Kate has carried on for Madeleine's sake."

Kate says
of the book: "Every penny we raise will be spent on our search for Madeleine. Nothing is more important than finding
our little girl."

Madeleine's gran, Eileen McCann, 70, tells Closer: "We are still hoping and praying.
You do hear of lost children being found."

Gerry's mum Eileen and his sister Tricia will visit the family
for the anniversary of Maddie's disappearance.

Eileen says: "Sean and Amelie are happy children and love
seeing us. As awful and upsetting as it's been, we've grown stronger as a family."

This week the family
will pray for Maddie at the Sacred Heart Church near their home.

Father Keith Tomlinson says: "We will be
saying special prayers for Madeleine."

By Tracey Kandohla

• Kate and Gerry urge
anyone with information about their daughter to contact www.flndmadeleine.com

• She was registered three months after being born and her birthday was celebrated at a third
date

By Paulo Marcelino3 May 2011Thanks to Joana Morais for translation and scan

Today it is four years since
Madeleine McCann disappeared from the tourist resort where she was on holiday with her parents and friends in Praia da Luz,
Lagos, Algarve. The judicial process continues to be archived without the mystery being solved, between the thesis of abduction,
homicide or accidental death - and the police still do not have an answer from the McCanns: Why was the English girl only
registered three months after being born and why do they celebrate her birthday on a different date.

Maddie disappeared
from the bedroom where she slept with her twin siblings, Sean and Amelie, on the night of 3 May 2007. The date of birth in
her passport - the only identity document given by the family to the Judiciary Police - is May 12, 2003 and that is the day
when the parents celebrate the birthday of their missing daughter.

However, in accordance with a document from
Leicestershire police - the area of residence of the McCann family in England - which was given to the PJ 15 days after her
disappearance, Madeleine McCann was born on March 12, 2003 and was registered by her parents on June, 5 of that same year.
In view of the difference of three months between the birth and the registration, the same report alerted to the possibility
that the child had another father. But DNA tests confirmed Gerry's paternity. The sample from Maddie which was used in
the tests, in an English laboratory, was a hair taken from her room in Leicestershire, assumed to be hers since it was proven
that it didn't come from her younger siblings.

The parents, Kate and Gerry, never explained the differences
in the birth dates and the birthday and why they took three months to register the little girl. Sources close to the investigation
assured Correio da Manhã that there were never answers to those questions. The investigators ended up assuming that
the delay in the registration was possibly related to the formalities associated with artificial insemination.

DETAILS

MADELEINE BOOK

It will be launched in Portugal, on the 23rd, the book 'Madeleine' written by the
mother. The profits will go to the parents' fund.

SPEECH PROFILE

The speech profile of Madeleine
done at the time admitted the possibility of a learning disability. The mother denied this.

Why is the Portuguese newspaper Correio da Manhã reporting that Madeleine McCann
was born on 12th March 2003 and was registered on 5th June the same yearr?How come her birthday is celebrated on 12th
May?Is this a translation error on the part of the newspaper, or is there some other reason for this?

The parents of Madeleine McCann have marked the fourth anniversary of her disappearance
in private with family and friends. Madeleine vanished from a Portuguese holiday apartment back in 2007.

--------------------------

Transcript

By Nigel Moore

Sameena Ali-Khan:
The parents of Madeleine McCann have marked the fourth anniversary of her disappearance in private with their family and friends.

Bob Warman: Madeleine vanished from a Portuguese holiday apartment back in 2007. Well, Victoria Davies
is live in the McCanns home village of Rothley, in Leicestershire. Errr... Victoria, this must be a distressing day for the
family.

Victoria Davies: It certainly is. It may be four years ago since Madeleine disappeared
but for her parents it's still just as painful, which is why they wanted today to be a private occasion but they have
turned up to this community prayer service, being held here in the centre of Rothley, this evening. Now, although they didn't
want to talk publicly, we did speak to their spokesperson Clarence Mitchell earlier today and he explained how hard this anniversary
is for them.

Clarence Mitchell: The family, of course, are... they find it very difficult whenever
there's a... a... a reminder such as the anniversary, or birthdays, anything like that, that comes up, it's very difficult
and that's why they... they like to keep it as private as possible.

Victoria Davies: Now,
it was four years ago to this day when Madeleine went... disappeared from the family's holiday apartment in Portugal.
Now, since then there have literally been dozens of sightings all around the world, from Morocco to Belgium, even as far as
New Zealand and Venezuela, and to give you an idea of... about how big this search still is, the Find Madeleine investigation
team say, at any one moment, they're dealing with 1900 different pieces of information but here in Rothley, as you can
see, there's a lot of support for the family and they're really living in hope that one day she will be found.

Vox Pop 1: I'm sure the community still feels very strongly about Madeleine and the parents and,
errr... we're all living in hope, aren't we? Same as the parents are.

Vox Pop 2: You don't
know when, or hopefully they will find her but where she is nobody knows, do they?

Vox Pop 3:
We're still worried, still thinking of her, thinking of the family; we see the family quite a lot. So, you know, just
hope she'll be found one day.

Sameena Ali-Khan: Victoria, you mentioned a figure of 1900 pieces
of information. What is the latest with the search for Madeleine and, indeed, the dwindling funds for the Save Madeleine Fund.

Victoria Davies: Well, as far as Madeleine's parents are concerned, as you can tell them being
here this evening, they're still thinking about Madeleine, the search is still very much continuing, they're still
paying for detectives, which is, of course, incredibly costly but on May the 12th, Madeleine's eighth birthday, a book
written by her mother will be released which details Madeleine's disappearance and that is expected to be an international
best-seller, which, of course, will help their dwindling funds but more importantly the family are hoping that with the book
launch a fresh piece of information may come to light and they may finally be able to find their missing daughter.

Kate and Gerry McCann 'overwhelmed'
by support in Liverpool as hundreds gather at a Mass for missing Madeleine, 04 May 2011

Kate and Gerry McCann 'overwhelmed' by support in Liverpool as hundreds gather at a Mass
for missing Madeleine Liverpool Echo

by Lyndsay Young, Liverpool EchoMay 4 2011

KATE McCANN and her husband Gerry said they were "overwhelmed" by support from the
people of Liverpool on the fourth anniversary of their daughter Madeleine’s disappearance.

A special Mass
was held for the missing little girl at Our Lady of the Annunciation, Bishop Eton, in Woolton Road, Childwall, last night.

Around 200 people joined Kate's parents Brian and Susan Healy at their parish church for the hour-long service.

Father Desmond Keegan, who led the Mass, read out words written by Kate and Gerry.

He read: "Four
years have passed but Madeleine remains constantly in our hearts and minds. She is still missing and she needs us to find
her. We appreciate that time moves on and lives are busy.

"In spite of these things we know that you care
deeply about Madeleine and want her to be found.

"Every time we visit we are overwhelmed by the level of support
for Madeleine and our family. Thank you for not forgetting Madeleine. Thank you for not giving up on Madeleine and thank you
for your support and friendship."

At the entrance of the church yellow and green wristbands were available,
appealing for people to keep up the fight to find Madeleine.

During the service Fr Keegan told how one parishioner
had worn his wristband for four years.

He said: "He said he won't take it off until Madeleine comes home.

"That is the sort of empathy that we want to show Madeleine and all the family."

Each Sunday,
the church, which is also where Kate and Gerry were married, holds a children's Mass at which Madeleine is remembered.

Fr Keegan talked about the "solidarity" of the church in its support for the family.

He said:
"We come together still hoping that little Madeleine returns."

In a touching reference to the Royal Wedding
he said he was moved at how Kate Middleton held on to her father's hand as he walked her safely down the aisle.

Fr Keegan said: "That's my prayer and my hope and my dream for Madeleine – that Jesus is holding her hand
and is leading her home and that one day in God's good time, with Jesus by her side, Madeleine will be led home to her
loved ones."

The family joined the congregation in taking Holy Communion after prayers were said for Madeleine.

After the Mass, her gran Susan told the ECHO: "I just think it was a lovely service. It's nice to see people
that you haven't seen for ages.

Thank you all for continuing
to support us. Yesterday was an extremely difficult day--even more so than any other day without our daughter. The service
was lovely and it was nice to meet some of you. Please try and keep your profile picture as Madeleine. We are trying to get
as many peope as possible to change their picture and keep it up until the 12th of May, Madeleine's birthday. Thank you!
xxx

Thank you to all that
have changed your profile picture. If you have any pictures from events like balloon releases, lanterns etc.., we would love
to have them for some new videos we are putting together. Please make sure if there are children in the pictures that you
are the parent of that child or you have permission to send us the pictures. You can send pictures to us at Webmaster@findmadeleine.com.
Thanks! xxx

Dear you. Have you got any new tracks about
the disappearance? I'm in Norway and it is not so much talk about this disappearance longer unfortunately.

Hope
it goes well with the family ♥

Response from the McCanns:

Wednesday,
04 May 2011 at 17:32

Hanne, unfortunately, there is no police force actively looking for our daughter. We
are hoping with the petition (link is to your left), we can get the UK government to put a police force on the search/investigation.
Also, with our book coming out on the 12th, we are hoping someone will remember something and that vital clue can lead to
Madeleine.

Another question:

Wednesday, 04 May 2011
at 19:52

What about the private investigator? Are they no longer looking?

Response from
the McCanns:

Wednesday, 04 May 2011 at 20:04

Rhian, we still have our private investigators working on the case, but the vital piece to the puzzle is still missing.
It's hard work going through thousands of tips. We have some of the best in their field looking for Madeleine, but we
are also missing vital information that the Portuguese police have not handed over to our investigation team. The Portuguese
police gave-up on Madeleine back in 2008; when they shelved the case. We are not kept up to date on any new information they
may receive either. That's why it's important we have an independent review of everything in the files and any info
that is missing is gathered and added to the puzzle to figure out where our daughter is.

FROM the moment he set eyes on her, Gerry McCann
was mesmerised by Kate Healy's infectious smile and sense of humour. The attraction was obvious but any chance of a romance
looked doomed from the start due to the ambitious Kate's work commitments.

They met as young
doctors working in different departments at Glasgow's Western Infirmary in the early Nineties and there was an instant
chemistry between them, friends remember.

In 1996 Kate moved to New Zealand to work and Gerry dropped the chance
of a dream job in the US to follow her there. Kate was never in doubt about Gerry's intentions after he travelled the
world to be with her and by the time they returned to settle in Glasgow in 1998 they were already planning to marry. Their
wedding took place that December at Our Lady of the Annunciation in Catholic Kate's home city of Liverpool.

Both
Kate and Gerry were ambitious with Glaswegian Gerry qualifying in cardiology (he is now a consultant) while Kate concentrated
on anaesthetics and gynaecology. In 2000 they moved to Queniborough in Leicestershire when Gerry got a job at the Glenfield
Hospital in Leicester, while Kate worked as a GP in Melton Mowbray.

Although driven by their careers the most important
thing in their lives was becoming parents but, even though the rest of their lives were going well, their dream of a baby
didn't seem to be coming true.

Kate, who suffers from inherited endometriosis (a uterine condition), recalled:
"I wanted to be a mother. When we were trying for a baby and it wasn't happening, it was really hard. The longer
it went on the harder it was.

"I saw my friends having children and I was delighted for them but it made me
sad too. We tried unsuccessfully for several years to conceive. There came a point when we admitted we needed help. I was
so desperate to have a child I'd try anything. I know IVF isn't everyone's choice but I wanted to try it."

Kate was devastated when initial treatment at a private fertility clinic failed but the couple remained united, strong
and determined. When she finally fell pregnant with Madeleine in 2002 aged 35 she said:

"It didn't seem
true. It was just fantastic. It was incredibly special because we had been waiting for a long time. I did a test at home so
I could handle the result if it wasn't good.

"I was looking at it thinking: 'I don't believe that!'
Then I went to the hospital and they checked it. I was really excited. It was a really uncomplicated pregnancy. I had no sickness,
nothing."

Madeleine was born on May 12, 2003, at a Leicester hospital.

Recalling her miracle baby's
birth Kate said: "There she was, perfect. She was lovely. She had the most beautiful face. I thought I was going to have
a boy, just based on instinct. That actually made it even more special that she was a girl. She took us by surprise."

Kate and Gerry wanted a bigger family and after further IVF treatment in the Netherlands, where they were living after
Gerry got a job there, Kate fell pregnant with twins in 2004.

The couple moved back to Britain and Sean and Amelie
were born on February 1, 2005. Finally Kate and Gerry's life was complete. Madeleine was awestruck by her little brother
and sister.

"She was amazing," said Kate. "She was only 20 months old, still a baby herself, but
she handled it all so well. Madeleine came in to see them for the first time and, oh, her little face!

"It
was lovely. She's got bags of character, that's for sure. She's very loving, caring, very funny, very chatty,
very engaging, but she has her moments like all children do. I do think she's very special."

In May 2006,
the McCanns moved to their ideal home; a £600,000 detached house in Rothley, Leicestershire, where they became part
of village life.

Madeleine attended the Laurels Nursery; rugby-loving Gerry would visit the Woodmans Stroke pub
to watch matches and he and Kate would go running regularly, or play sport with the children.

An important part
of their lives was attending their church, the Sacred Heart, just a five-minute stroll from their home, for Sunday morning
mass with the children. Kate often went to a Tuesday morning service too.

Their strong faith was to play a vital
role in the events which followed.

ON April 28, 2007, an excited Madeleine clambered up the
steps to the plane, squealing with delight as she held on to another little girl's hand.

Dressed
from top to toe in pink, her favourite colour, and carrying a Barbie backpack, the angel-faced three-year-old could barely
contain herself.

Madeleine, her parents and younger siblings were going on holiday to the Mark Warner Ocean Club
in Praia de Luz, Portugal, with a group of friends: Fiona Payne, her husband David, her mother Dianne Webster and their two
young daughters Scarlet and Lily; Matthew Oldfield, his wife Rachael, and daughter Grace; Russell O’Brien, his partner
Jane and their two girls Eva and Ellie.

They intended to stay for a week, planning to return on Saturday, May 5,
seven days before Maddie's fourth birthday. The four families, nine adults and eight children, had rented apartments at
the Ocean Club in Waterside Gardens Block 5. The McCanns' large flat, 5a, was on the ground floor on a street corner with
a public road running next to it. Next to them in 5b were the Oldfields. Across the landing in 5d were Russell and his family.
On the floor above in 5h were the Paynes and Fiona’s mother Dianne.

The families set into a regular routine.
The McCanns had breakfast in their apartment as they found it difficult getting the little ones up and dressed and then taken
to the resort's Millennium restaurant, especially as the twins were only just mastering walking.

In the evenings
for the rest of their stay they gave the children tea early, playing with them for an hour then putting them to bed in their
apartments. They would then go out to eat themselves. The resort had a tapas bar and restaurant which they felt was ideally
located, within sight of their rooms and less than a minute's walk away. Rachael made a block booking for the rest of
the week so everyone knew what was happening for the adult-only meals each evening.

The resort did not offer a
baby-listening service but the adults took it in turns to check on the children. The Paynes had the added comfort of using
their own baby device which they placed outside the children's bedroom. They were the only pair who had a good enough
device to cover the distance between the apartment and the restaurant. Russell and Jane had a similar radio device but the
reception was erratic and they could not rely on it. The other couple had no such listening devices but the general feeling
among the parents was that they could barely imagine a more secure place for their children.

The families spent
their days playing sports, with children at the resort's children's club. There was a group gathering for tea at about
5pm, before the children were put to bed and adult time began.

The only cloud on the horizon came over breakfast
on the morning of Thursday, May 3. "Why didn't you come when me and Sean were crying last night?" Maddie grumbled.

Subconsciously Kate may have harked back to a strange premonition when in a phone call to a friend she confided a
niggling doubt about going on the holiday, saying: "I don't know why; I just feel uneasy."

Kate and
Gerry did talk about their daughter's remark. "Gerry and I spoke for a couple of minutes and agreed to keep a close
watch over the children," Kate recalled. They decided to make more frequent checks on them from the tapas bar. On that
Wednesday night when Maddie and Sean had been unsettled, Rachael had stayed in her apartment with a tummy bug but cannot recall
hearing any crying from next door.

The day of May 3 passed happily, with lots of activities before Madeleine joined
Sean and Amelie for tea with resort staff at 5.30pm. Kate put the children to bed; Madeleine in her favourite pink pyjamas
with Eeyore from Winnie-The-Pooh on the front. At 7pm, Kate and Gerry relaxed in their apartment before going to the tapas
bar at 8.30pm.

They left through the patio doors which remained unlocked, although they were shut tight. The front
door was shut but Gerry cannot remember whether he put the double lock on or not. From the tapas bar they could see the rear
of their apartment over some bushes but they could not see all of the patio doors because there was a wall in front. They
could not see the children's room either as it was at the front of the apartment. "For us, it wasn't very much
different from having dinner in your garden, in the proximity of the location. Thousands of people have either done exactly
the same or say they would have done the same," Gerry said.

The diners (apart from Kate and Gerry, they were
later nicknamed the Tapas Seven) chatted about the day and sipped wine. Kate and Gerry felt very comfortable with their holiday
friends. There was lots of laughter and conversation over four bottles of wine but they were rarely all sitting down together:
the meal was punctuated by parents leaving to check on children. Sometimes their paths crossed on the way to and from apartments.

At about 9.05pm it was Gerry's turn to check on his three. They were all asleep. Maddie was snuggled up with Cuddle
Cat, her favourite toy. The blanket was pulled close to her head. "All's fine," Gerry thought as he closed the
bedroom door and walked out through the patio doors.

On the way back to the bar, he chatted with Jeremy Wilkins,
a holidaymaker he had met earlier at the resort's tennis courts. They were passed by Jane at about 9.15pm going to check
on boyfriend Russell who was nursing their sick child. Gerry returned to the tapas bar 10 minutes later. Shortly after 9.30pm
a concerned Russell went back to check his poorly child. He was accompanied by Matt, who had offered to save Kate the trouble
by checking on her children as well as his.

Matt crept into the McCanns' apartment and found the children's
door open. He had no idea that Gerry had partially closed it. He glanced through it, seeing Sean and Amelie asleep but during
his quick check didn't set eyes on Madeleine, whose bed was slightly hidden behind the door. The room was silent and everything
appeared fine. Both men rejoined the table before 10pm. Shortly afterwards, Kate decided to check herself.

Within
less than a minute she was walking through the patio doors. She sensed something was wrong because the window was open. Then,
to her horror, she discovered that Maddie was missing. She frantically searched the flat once, twice, three times and screamed
"Madeleine, Madeleine!"

Cuddle Cat had been abandoned in the bedroom. Kate's screams echoed around
the complex as she ran in blind panic back towards the tapas bar shouting: "Madeleine has gone. Someone has taken her!"

AFTER they discovered that their daughter Madeleine was missing,
the McCanns' nightmare began; one that was not helped by the reaction of the authorities in Portugal and in Britain. Gerry
raced to apartment 5a as friends comforted his wife.

He rechecked everywhere Kate had looked and
then dashed around the apartment block and asked fellow resort guest and Tapas Seven member Matthew to go to reception to
call the police at about 10.15pm.

Gerry was impatient with the slow response and went to check 15 minutes later,
breaking down in tears as the full horror began to sink in.

Back in the apartment Kate was overcome with shock
and despair. She kicked and punched the walls, wailing: "We've let her down!"

Portuguese police failed
to turn up until nearly an hour later. Two officers from the GNR, Portugal's military police, arrived but they couldn't
speak English and needed a translator provided by a member of staff at the Ocean Club.Shortly before midnight the Policia
Judiciária (PJ), which investigates serious crimes, were called in.

Along with Kate, Gerry, their friends,
other holidaymakers and locals they scoured the area for two-and-a-half hours but scaled down the search at 3am, hoping the
youngster would be found in daylight.

The day after the kidnap the McCanns and their seven friends were taken to
the PJ headquarters in Portimao, a large town 20 miles away, to give statements. None of the police, who were dressed informally
and smoking, introduced themselves. "No sympathy was shown and it was far from inspiring," Kate said later. At about
3pm Kate gave a statement, accompanied by her husband and a translator.

A photo police had forgotten to show them
from CCTV was waved in front of them but it was not Madeleine. Kate and Gerry were devastated. The British Embassy issued
a statement declaring Madeleine missing. Her parents were convinced that she had been kidnapped.

A distraught Kate
and Gerry maintained their dignity to face the press after returning from the police station on May 4. Sniffer dogs searched
the area but they had not picked up a clear scent of Madeleine. Searches of wasteland also produced nothing, adding to the
alarm now sweeping the Algarve.

Leicestershire police sent a team of three liaison officers to help the family
deal with the crisis but in, what appeared to be a major blunder, they chose not to send detectives trained in how to deal
with kidnaps.

Guilhermino Encarnacao, director of the Judicial Police in the Faro region, said his officers were
treating the case as a kidnapping and disclosed they had an artist's impression of a suspect, which later turned out to
be a very poor drawing.

Another police blunder was not publicising a key piece of information. Jane Tanner, one
of the Tapas Seven, recalled seeing a man walk away from the McCanns' apartment at about 9.15pm carrying a child in his
arms. Detectives did not publicise this sighting for three weeks.

At that time, Encarnacao said police had received
30 calls which they were following up. Those calls should have been treated with the utmost care because they were the hot
ones from people who had information which was fresh in their minds.

In such investigations it is vital for police
to act quickly on what they believe is solid information but it will never be known if one of those calls could have provided
a major clue which could have been followed up properly.

So what should have been done differently in the crucial
days after May 3? The simple answer is that the Portuguese police did not throw enough support into the inquiry. There should
have been hundreds of officers in Praia da Luz with experts from Lisbon drafted in to organise searches, commit information
to computers and cross reference known paedophiles and those posing a risk to children.

Scotland Yard and Leicestershire
police should have teamed up to send a team of at least 10 detectives to the scene to advise the PJ on what to do and interview
those crucial witnesses who spoke English. They should have arrived with a police artist to create proper images of potential
suspects.

Scotland Yard and PJ officers should have interviewed the McCanns and the Tapas Seven in English and
then translated their notes into Portuguese.

On August 5, 2007, the focus of press interest centred on Robert Murat,
a British man living close to the Mark Warner complex, who was named an "arguido", an official suspect in the case.
He was innocent but his involvement was yet another blind alley the police were walking down because they did not feel they
had anything else to go on.

As Kate spoke publicly, Gonçalo Amaral, the PJ officer in charge of the day-to-day
running of the investigation was working to build a case against the McCanns. Kate and Gerry may have felt closer to the investigation
but the reality was that Amaral was freezing them out, telling them very little while pursuing his own agenda.

There
was a formality creeping in, an officious air about the meetings that raised concerns in the McCann campaign because the focus
of the inquiry was shifting away from pursuing leads and trying to find her and instead moving towards the couple.

On September 6 Kate was dropped off at Portimao police station, 30 miles from Praia da Luz, by Gerry.

She would
not emerge until nearly 1am the next day. Until then she was still being treated as a loving mother who had lost her child.
Now she underwent forensic interviewing and was told a great deal about the lines of inquiry, how the sniffer dogs had apparently
detected blood in the apartment and the smell of a corpse, how body fluid had been detected in the family's Renault Scenic
hire car.

Before being taken to the police station, Kate told friends she thought she was being set up. One friend
was quoted as saying: "Kate is terrified. This has been the worst week since Madeleine vanished. They fear they might
be suspects."

Already in the Portuguese morning papers there had been a host of salacious leaks served up
by the police to pile yet more pressure on the McCanns. What had begun with lunchtime prayers ended in the early hours with
Kate feeling drained, hurt, bemused and preparing herself for further agonies.

On Friday, September 7, the couple
visited the police station while Gerry prepared himself for his own interview. On arrival, through a crowd of several hundred,
Kate was told by police that she was being made a suspect.

Police put 22 questions to her, each one hostile and
aggressive and each one sending a shiver of pain through her. Gerry's sister Philomena gave ITV an account of the line
of questioning she endured. "They were saying: 'Tell us what you did with her.' They tried to get Kate to confess
to having killed Madeleine accidentally."

The line of questioning was Amaral's last throw of the dice.
His team was getting nowhere and so the easy option was to look at the McCanns.

Using questionable DNA data he
built up a theory but there was no real evidence that Madeleine had died in the apartment and there was no real evidence she
had been put in the Renault hire car almost a month later.

Detectives in this country would never have questioned
someone on such flimsy evidence. The information gleaned by forensics would have been classed as useful; it would have been
used as a basis for further investigation, or it would have been put to one side while officers pursued more concrete clues.

When Kate emerged from the police station on September 8 she looked a different woman with a steeliness about her.
It was as though the unpleasant confrontation with the Portuguese detectives had made up her mind.

She and Gerry
would return to Britain, painful as it would be to leave the country from which her daughter had been kidnapped.

So on Saturday, September 9, with the media circus in full flow, they left their apartment and made their way to the airport,
their every move captured on TV to an audience of millions, and 129 days after Madeleine vanished they set foot on British
soil.

On the Tarmac Gerry read a statement, subdued and clearly angered by their treatment: "As parents we
cannot give up on our daughter until we know what has happened. We have to keep doing everything we can to find her. We played
no part in the disappearance of our lovely daughter Madeleine."

THERE are many theories as to how Madeleine was taken.
Did the kidnapper have a dry run the previous evening when Madeleine said she and Sean had been crying?

How did they get into apartment 5a? Through the patio doors which Gerry couldn't remember locking? Or did they have
a duplicate key? Were the children sedated?

How did the kidnapper escape? If the man "Tapas 7" member
Jane Tanner saw carrying a child as she returned to her apartment was carrying Madeleine our guess is that after walking along
the road he would have crossed and turned left up an alleyway to avoid being seen.

Logic says the kidnapper would
have a vehicle near. If so it would make sense to park up a very quiet road virtually opposite the alleyway and close to wasteland.
If there was no car the man may have gone to the wasteland to rest as carrying a child would have made his arms ache.

Around 8pm a woman with long dark hair was seen under a street light opposite the apartment and at the top of the junction.
An elderly British woman saw her staring at the flat which made her suspicious. She has never been found.

Staying
at the wasteland for any length of time was now not an option. Without a vehicle, he would have been looking at how to flee.
Walking along the main roads out of town in either direction would risk being seen by scores of drivers.

The only
option left was to go to the remote areas of the beach in Praia da Luz where no one would search in the darkness of the night.

The kidnapper possibly walked down a seldom-used road running by the wasteland towards the seafront.

Irish
holidaymaker Martin Smith saw a man carrying a child in his arms walking towards the sea as his family headed to their apartment
after a night out. The clothing the stranger wore was similar to the description given by Jane.

WHEN the McCanns arrived in Rothley, Leicestershire, their
home was festooned with yellow ribbons; a sign that Madeleine would never be forgotten and a symbol of the family's fighting
spirit.

Kate and Gerry knew they had to keep Madeleine's face in people's minds. In mid-September
they decided on an £80,000 advertisement campaign.

Every evening Gerry would sit at the kitchen table and
make calls to family, friends and influential supporters.

"They do not sit around banging the table and spitting
out invective," said friend Jon Corner.

"They know they had nothing to do with their daughter's disappearance.
They just want to find her."

The couple spent a great deal of time with their lawyers, Michael Caplan, QC,
and Angus McBride, who both have vast experience of international law. They also hired a lawyer in Lisbon, Carlos Pinto de
Abreu.

As part of the McCanns' fightback, several close friends gave interviews to the press supporting the
family.

Linda McQueen and Nicky Gill, two of Kate's oldest friends, spoke warmly of the couple now under an
intense spotlight: "The things that have been said are unfair and hurtful. It's frustrating for Kate and Gerry that
anything is taking the focus away from Madeleine and the search for her.

"At the bottom of all this, Kate
is a mother who has lost her daughter and she needs all the help she can get. Kate is a warm, loving, loyal friend. We will
continue to support and help right to the end."

Kate McCann last night revealed that she and husband Gerry
are still haunted with guilt over leaving their three children in the apartment while they ate at a nearby tapas bar.

Kate said: "People say 'why didn't you get a babysitter?' That didn't enter our minds either. Having
a babysitter implied there was a risk situation and we just didn't see it like that. We didn't think it was necessary.
It wasn't to save money."

Kate said she has become a sort of amateur detective when she returns to Luz
to try and learn what happened to her daughter. She said: "I look at the apartment. I kind of step into that person's
shoes and I think 'Where did you go?' I think it was someone who knew our movements. I don't think someone was
passing by chance and took a child.

"I find it helpful trying to work things out. I just want to try to understand
it. I'm probably wasting my time but I have this need to do it."

Nicky said the couple had gone into a
cocoon in the days after because they were so traumatised but people were telling them to get Madeleine's face in the
public domain so that is what they did.

Signing up former BBC reporter Clarence Mitchell as their spokesman, they
knew that they had to have a top public relations operation in order to find their daughter and to stop hurtful and untrue
stories from emerging.

On September 20 the Evening Standard in London led on a story with the headline What Kate
Really Said. The words attributed to her were "Madeleine's gone". Such was the appetite for news on the story
that two words constituted enough for a front-page story.

Among the revelations was the claim that a child spotted
being carried away from the scene was not covered in a blanket as had been previously reported. The child was in fact reported
to have been wearing pyjamas matched by Madeleine.

It was a startling claim and more worthy of a front-page story
but there was precious other information to relate.

In the same month the McCanns said in another story that they
believed their telephone calls were being bugged by the British Secret Service and their e-mails were being monitored. On
September 22 there was another story claiming Gerry told police the abductor could have been in the room when he did his check.
A further leaked story said that Madeleine had been seen in Morocco by a second witness. This was crucial because the proximity
of the sightings and the fact that neither of the witnesses knew each other.

Norwegian holidaymaker Mari Pollard
was convinced that the little girl she saw at a petrol station in Marrakech on May 9 was Madeleine. Unknown to her a British
man on holiday at a nearby hotel reported seeing her near the hotel at about the same time. Coincidence? Mistaken identity?
Who knows but the detail on the sightings was enough to keep Madeleine on the front pages.

Kate has written a book
about her eldest daughter and the search for her, which will be launched on Thursday, Madeleine's eighth birthday.

Kate McCann thanks Liverpool people
for support over daughter Madeleine's disappearance, 17 May 2011

Kate McCann thanks Liverpool people for support over daughter Madeleine's disappearance Liverpool Echo

by Our Correspondent, Liverpool
EchoMay 17 2011

As British detectives prepare to review Madeleine McCann's disappearance,
her mother Kate tells the ECHO in her own words how the support of her hometown of Liverpool has helped in the search to find
her daughter

FOUR years. Just saying it makes me shudder.

Sometimes it all feels as raw as
yesterday and at others, a lifetime ago. We couldn't have made it this far on our own – of that I'm certain.
The soothing and strengthening effect of human kindness should never be underestimated.

I haven't been 'home'
as much as usual over the past nine months. My life feels as though it's been kind of hijacked while I've been writing
my book. Even my mum commented that it felt like she'd lost her daughter as well as her granddaughter for a time.

When we have made it up to Liverpool however, it's always been a positive trip. Whether it's been a reassuring squeeze
on the arm from a passer-by or a slap on the back at Goodison with a "Y'alright love?", the support and solidarity
of my hometown has been obvious – and very appreciated.

Sunday morning mass at my mum and dad's local
church (Bishop Eton) is very special. It is invariably packed with families and hordes of lovely children, and the sense of
community is striking. Every week Madeleine and all missing children are remembered and prayed for.

We draw great
comfort when we're there (and also when we're not) from knowing that our little girl is never forgotten. Father Des,
the parish priest has to take a lot of credit for this. He's been a huge source of support and strength for my parents
over the last four years and for that I'm very grateful.

I have no doubt that we won't be the only family
sad to see him go when he heads up to his new parish in Edinburgh at the end of the month. Wherever he goes though, I know
he'll take Madeleine with him.

In February we had one of three regional fundraisers, 'Bags of Hope for
Madeleine' in the Crypt at Liverpool Metropolitan Cathedral. Many local businesses donated auction and raffle prizes,
or contributed to the evening in different ways.

Such generosity, especially at a time of financial hardship speaks
volumes for the city and its people. Even while we were unloading the car and setting up the venue, pensioners were coming
up and slipping money into our hands for the fund.

Ricky Tomlinson and Love Potion kindly gave up their time to
help Madeleine too and make the evening extra special. Several of the guests remarked, "Can't you just feel the love
in this room tonight?" And we did.

As shattered as we were after the months which had gone before, we were
totally buoyed up by this incredible show of support and ready once more to fight another week.

Ricky Tomlinson
said to us that night: "You know what's wrong about this? You shouldn't have to be doing any of it!" But
whilst there is no police force anywhere looking for Madeleine, we do have to keep doing it because who else and how else
will we ever find her?

Thankfully however, there does seem to be some positive news on the horizon, following the
government's announcement on Thursday about a proposed review of Madeleine's case.

A review is a widely-used
and valuable investigative procedure which hasn't been undertaken at all in the past four years, a stone which is yet
to be turned for Madeleine. We truly believe it could take us one step closer to finding her, hence our requests to the governments
over the past two years.

We are encouraged by this latest development and grateful to our government and the Metropolitan
Police for offering their expertise and assistance. We are looking forward to receiving clarification and further details
shortly and expect to work closely with those involved. Nothing is more important to us than finding Madeleine.

Thank
you to everyone supporting this campaign and for signing our petition. If you haven't signed so far, please do so now,
as this will show your support for the proposed review. (Visit www.findmadeleine.com for details).

In the meantime,
and regardless of any review, we do of course need to maintain an active search for Madeleine. As this is currently down to
us and our small team, I would like to take this opportunity to thank everyone for buying my book, the proceeds of which will
enable us to continue our search.

In the words of Alan Pike, the counsellor who helped us during the aftermath
of Madeleine’s abduction, "You have to be ready for Madeleine walking through that door." And he's right.
It may be four years since we last saw Madeleine but that could change at any minute. She's still missing and she's
still findable.

The support we've had from Liverpool has been tremendous. The warmth, humour and generosity
that I've always associated with home have anything but lessened since Madeleine was taken.

I hope that one
day I'll be able to finish without having to ask for something but for now that will have to wait.

Please continue
to help us in our search for Madeleine. Please sign our petition. Please help us to bring Madeleine home.

Thank
you for everything you've done, and still do, for Madeleine. With our united efforts, one day hopefully, she'll be
able to thank you herself.

Readers can follow Kate and Gerry McCann on social media sites via the website www.findmadeleine.com

If you have any information which may be relevant to the investigation, please contact investigation@findmadeleine.com
or call 0845 838 4699.